The semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) industry has experienced exponential growth. Technological advances in IC materials and design have produced generations of ICs where each generation has smaller and more complex circuits than the previous generation. In the course of IC evolution, functional density (i.e., the number of interconnected devices per chip area) has generally increased while geometry size (i.e., the smallest component (or line) that can be created using a fabrication process) has decreased. This scaling down process generally provides benefits by increasing production efficiency and lowering associated costs. Such scaling down has also increased the complexity of processing and manufacturing ICs and, for these advances to be realized, similar developments in IC processing and manufacturing are needed.
One challenge with the decreasing geometry of semiconductor ICs is the formation of interconnections between elements of a semiconductor device. These interconnections can take up valuable area of the layout of a semiconductor device. Thus, what is desired is a device and method that may reduce the layout area and provide flexible patterning of interconnections between elements of a semiconductor device.